Chemistry of Food and cooking: Eggcellent or not eggcelent chocolate cake

Reflection:

How does cooking transform food and how can these transformations be understood as chemical processes?

Cooking transforms food in multiple ways. It can transform the texture, moisture, taste, and appearance of a food. Heat energy is what causes the food to change during the process of cooking. When foods or liquids get hot, their molecules absorb the energy, begin to vibrate rapidly, and bounce off of each other. As the molecules collide, heat energy is produced and transferred, causing the food to heat up and making the food cook. There is three different types of cooking that involve different methods of heating, which causes the foods to cook differently and turn out differently. The first method is radiation, this is when heat and light waves strike the and penetrate the food. The second method is conduction, this is when the heat is being transferred between objects in direct contact. The last method is convection, this is when there is circulation that forces molecules to move from warmer areas to cooler areas in the air. ​Once you have cooked your food through one of these methods you know that a chemical reaction has occurred because a new substance has been created. Once you have cooked the food, the change that occured is irreversible due to energy changing. For example, when you cook a substance that contains protein, when the protein molecules absorb heat they change shape, causing the texture and appearance to change. Let’s take an egg for example, before you decide to boil an the egg, the egg white contains proteins that are made up of chains of amino acids. Before heating the egg, the amino acids are in a certain shape, which gives the egg white its shape. Once you put the egg in the pot the chains of amino acids change, this is called denaturation. Denaturation is when the heat from the stove causes some of the proteins to break apart. However, in this case of hard boiling the egg, the proteins clump together and solidify, making the egg white and yolk harden.

How can we design an experiment and measure the qualities and desirability of a finished recipe both quantitatively and qualitatively in order to determine the success of our recipe experimentation?

There are multiple ways to measure the qualities and desired abilities of a finished recipe both qualitatively and quantitatively. To start off, you would need to pick an independent variable (what you will be altering) and a dependent variable (the product). After you have chosen your independent variable you should research how and why it could affect your final product. Once you done that, you will need to find a way to measure the chosen qualities. In this case, you would want to create more than one food that keeps the rest of recipe the same except the independent variable. This will allow you to compare how the independent variable affects the food. In order to compare the effect of the independent variable you should design quantitative test, this could be measuring moisture through dehydrating your food or measuring how much the final products rose (this will depend on what your dependent variable is). When you have collected the data from your quantitative test, you can then measure your foods qualitatively. One of the easiest way is to conduct a taste test with multiple people and compare their results. To create a taste test that will give you the results you are looking for, you need to ask a variety of questions, that will tell you which one is most desirable. You could ask questions about the density, the moisture, the texture, the sweetness, and which one they prefer. Then, compare the responses from the taste test (qualitative data) to the test you designed (quantitative data) to see if your experiment was a success. By asking which altercation was most preferred you will learn which variation of the independent variable was greatly desired.

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​Water Quality in the Animas River Watershed

Reflection:

What new information did you learn through doing this project?

At the beginning of this project we had different individuals come in a talk to us about water quality and the new water reclamation facility being built. One talk that really stood out to me was about pollutants in the river and what steps the water treatment plant takes to get rid of those pollutants. At the beginning of the presentation I thought the only pollutants that go into our water are metals, bacteria, and nitrogen. I now realize that there is also phosphorous, fats, oils, pharmaceuticals, grit, and hygiene products present in our water before it goes into the water treatment plant. Most of the substances that are in the water before it goes into the water treatment plant is human waste or is because of humans. Once we talked about the different pollutant in the river, we then discussed how the water treatment plants gets rid of those pollutants. I learned that there are seven steps to treat the water. There is bar screen, a grit removal, a clarifier, a trickling filter, aeration basin, UV/chlorination, and a digester. I also learned about a septic, which is another method of treating water. The process starts out with a septic tank, which goes into a drain field, then an effluent filter. After that it goes into the soil or solar heat and the water lastly goes into a leach field or lagoon.

We not only talked about how we are treating our water, but also how the quality of the water in the river can affect the aquatic health. I learned that Trout are indicator species as well as insects. Trout thrive better in high-quality water, so you can tell if there is good water quality depending on the presences of Trout. This is the same with insects, there are different types of water insects that can indicate the quality of the water. Mayflies and Caddisflies are very sensitive to water quality and need good water quality to thrive, so when they are not present in the river you can infer that the water isn’t good quality. If there is Mosquito larva and Black fly larva present you can infer that the water quality is bad because they are able to thrive in low- quality water. After we learned a base line about insects and trout, my group decided to research more about water qualities effect on fish. In researching we found, that when there is an increase in turbidity it becomes difficult for the fish to catch food because the visibility in the water decreases. Fish heavily rely on their sight to catch food, so when there is low visibility it becomes harder for the fish. The sediment that gets stirred up when the turbidity is high can get in the fish gills making it harder for them to breathe. Since the turbidity affects the fish in such a way they will leave that ecosystem if the quality of the water gets too bad. This is why Trout are such a good indicator species.

What new skills or dispositions did you learn from this project?

For this project, we started working on it a week before Christmas break. We had individuals from the community come talk to us about different aspects of water quality and the water reclamation facility. After Christmas break, we had two and half weeks to find a topic and create a project. Since we only had two and half weeks to complete a project we had to manage our time well. Before we started we planned out what we wanted to have done each week, so we wouldn’t be stressed. By making a timeline or planning out the steps it can make the process easier. For example, we decided to make all the research done in the first week and then start the art in the second week. We also created a spreadsheet to assign different tasks to each individual in our group so the work was spread equally. By managing our time and tasks well it allowed us to have our project done and ready for the exhibition in time, as well as, giving us room to work through challenges we ran into. Since we had limited time this project pushed us to manage our and tasks well.​

To what extent is the study of water quality an important topic to investigate in school and in a chemistry class in particular?

I think that water quality is an important topic to discuss and investigate not only in school, but in general. Water quality has multiple different aspects and can help you learn more about the water in your community. Water quality allows you to learn about climate change, aquatic life, and pollutants. When you discuss water quality you can discuss how it affects aquatic life and what different aspects affect the aquatic health. You can also learn about the different point source and non-point source pollutants that affect the quality of water. You can see how climate change is affecting the water with early runoff, drought, and turbidity. From there it allows us to see how we can treat pollutants through the water treatment plant. This is important to learn in school because with this information we can gain knowledge of how we are affecting the water quality, how we can test the water quality, and what we can do to change it. It is especially important in a chemistry class because it teaches us how we can measure different aspects of water quality, such as pH, turbidity, streamflow, dissolved oxygen, and temperature. It allows us to analyze our data and give us a real-world application. It also gives us a chance to learn about different metals and their effect on water quality. When situations arise in our community having the knowledge about water quality will give us an understanding of what's happening and give us a chance to help create change.

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